Thread: coticule help

I should clarify that I mean Smith's honing solution not Smith's honing oil. I don't think they even make the oil anymore but I have an old bottle left over from yesteryear. When I first heard people talking about it I thought they meant the oil and when they referenced diluting it with water I thought they were smoking grass or something. I think my dumb @$$ even tried it (maybe I got a contact buzz, who knows ) and, of course, made a big mess. It was like honing with salad dressing.

Originally Posted by TristanLudloz1928273

Many thanks, glycerine was maybe not my favorite.
I went to olive oil again, but first let it saturate the stone a bit, I think it did pretty well, haven't shaved off of it though, but felt really pleasant to hone on.

Check out this video, it's an oldie, but on "second grade" Coticules, they used to melt resin in the stones and then polish them up.
There seems to have been a lot of surface prep in the older days.
They get worked on by a few different stones and "glazed", very interesting.

https://youtu.be/OEOEggYgskU?t=1252

No idea which resin it is.

On the topic of taking care of your Coticule / BBW surface. I do believe dressing your honing surface can be crucial for these stones.
I remember on the old Coticule forum, people that freshly lapped their Coti with a BBW slurry stone, got much better results afterwards.
So if you used a diamond stone to lap your Coticule, I would suggest to rub it well and prep your surface with a Coti or BBW stone. And see if that makes a difference.

I have three combination coticules that are very close to the same size and use them to lap each other and produce slurry. It seems to keep them “true” and produce a nice slurry. Haven’t tried BBW slurry on a coti yet.

Tried to touch up a WB using Glycerin. Made a better looking scratch pattern but still not a shaveable edge. Maybe too many laps?

Originally Posted by tintin

Tried to touch up a WB using Glycerin. Made a better looking scratch pattern but still not a shaveable edge. Maybe too many laps?

I’ve never experienced over honing with a coti. Everything I’ve read suggests that is highly unlikely.

As has been mentioned by a lot of folks previously, Sheffield steel seems to love coticules, so I’m not sure why your WB didn’t like your stone. Cotis are natural stones and some are better for honing razors than others.

Is it possible the edge needed more than a refresh?

I read somewhere that coticule.edges work better after 40-60 laps on flax linen. I have not had to do that but you might try it. For me I have found when in doubt go to the flax although I bought some hemp fiber webbing a while back and I find it even more aggressive.

Originally Posted by DZEC

I’ve never experienced over honing with a coti. Everything I’ve read suggests that is highly unlikely.

As has been mentioned by a lot of folks previously, Sheffield steel seems to love coticules, so I’m not sure why your WB didn’t like your stone. Cotis are natural stones and some are better for honing razors than others.

Is it possible the edge needed more than a refresh?

Indeed, you won't overhone on a Coticule, you can under-hone on them though.
Mine are extremely slow with oil. I do a LOT of work on a Coti with just water first, and then finish on oil with a lot of strokes, even do half strokes and circles, ver lightly. and finish with the lightest x-strokes possible, barely touching stone. The Coticule on oil will mostly be a polisher, I won't expect it to do much of any cutting or metal removing apart from that. On water it varies some are very slow some can be fast.

As mentioned if your razor edge is not ready to be purely finished, it won't work and you'll have to drop down on your honing regime.
Coticules are a PITA. Your HHT coming off oil should be very very good. And increase to max once stropped, barely touching the thinnest hair you can find should immediately cut it and drop it.

I always strop on Cotton, but indeed as mentioned above, many on the old Coti forum were adamant to use linen after honing on the Coti.
A freshly honed Coti edge needs a good stropping though, more than your usual daily routine.

I never overhoned on a Coti but I did severly underhone on them in the past. And there's a big difference between water and oil, when finishing on water after wiping the razor I can clearly see the metal that was removed. With oil, I get no visible metal leftovers, so I do believe oil helps a lot using it as a final finisher. I don't usually like them on pure water shave-wise, it misses smoothness and keenness for me. But I'm lazy and don't do any beard prep, and easily notice the difference. If I let the lather work for some minutes the difference is much less noticeable. But for me oil is the way to go, ymmv.

I hope you can find what works for you, because the garnets give a very skin friendly shave, they're not Escher sharp most of the time and you will notice that during the shave, but they will be very smooth and very skin friendly and should be plenty sharp.

I can confirm that using oil to finish the edge on a coti brings it to another level.

Based on Tristan’s comments, I took a Taylor cast steel razor I had shaved with yesterday to my combo coti using a light honing oil. My previous shave with the the Taylor was really close and comfortable, but I could not get the HHT to more than a level 3. After finishing on oil, the hairs just snapped off on contact with the edge - wow!


I’ll use the razor tomorrow when I have a similar beard growth to the previous shave and report on the results, but I expect it to be amazing.

The past few posted pages are the first I have heard of using oil on a coti. I'll have to try it. I love learning new stuff!

I have never felt the need for oil on a coti. I think it helps the ones that need it TBH.

Originally Posted by stoneandstrop

I have never felt the need for oil on a coti. I think it helps the ones that need it TBH.

I do agree that on the best Coticules, the difference between oil or water are minimal. But it will do something. There won’t be a need for oil as you said per se.
On lesser grade Cotis the difference will be bigger.


Many catalogues of the past marketed the Belgian hones as oil hones.
They were also never sold with slurry stones. Although slurry has absolute wonderful and impressive capabilities.
What most of ud have read is is a more modern approach to the Coticule. Due in part to the Coticule forum.
However, they tried to do the exact same thing on that forum. Trying to improve the results of plain water finishing, like cllogging and taming the garnets by rubbing dry shave soap on the Coti, or candle wax, etc etc.
Bart had made and stated very noticeable improvements.
Well oil does just that, reduces friction, tames the garnets, which ups the keenness and smooths the edge by reducing the cutting power of the garnets leaving more shallow scratches. Also the reason why pressure really matters during the finishing stage.

My Coticules/BBWs combos I inherited are of the highest quality. Very hard La Veinette or similar stones. Old rock, deep rock, or whatever they were marketed at for the foreign market. All of them heavily used with oil.

Old French texts going a good while back mention professional razor sharpeners using olive oil on the Belgian stones.
Coincidentally I have found olive oil to be of perfect viscosity and consistency for honing on.

I posted a video where the coticule miners/workers themselves treated second grade coti surfaces by melting resin in the Coticule surface.
They did a lot more prep to all the Coticules’ surfaces than I thought, rubbing them with different hard stones, even glazing them.